U.S. warplanes bomb Baghdad as street battles rage

Azzaman

U.S. troops are deploying massive air and ground fire power against heavily populated residential areas in Baghdad as a prelude to the start of the campaign to retake the city they invaded nearly four years ago. "The sky is burning," one witness refusing to be named said of the aerial bombing of mainly Sunni-dominated districts of Haifa, Sheikh Omar and Alawi. The latest military drive to retake Baghdad, home to nearly six million people, comes following the failure of many others the U.S. military has undertaken since landing here. In those offensives – and certainly in this one - the victims have been innocent Iraqis and the city’s rickety infrastructure. Witnesses say U.S. bombing has already knocked out several power lines and water mains in these areas. The residents are without electricity and running water and there is no verifiable count of casualties...

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